Developer Refinances Office, Plans Residential

To facilitate the move, Robbins recently refinanced the fully leased, 75,000-sf office building (543 Howard St.) to the tune of $17.5 million and took out a $3.5-million pre-development loan for the parking lot (48 Tehama St.). The financing for the office building is an assumable, permanent, non-recourse, fixed-rate 10-year loan. The lender on both is a portfolio pension fund.

"To combine the parcels I had to buy out the existing loan so that there is basically the same lender on both," Robbins says. "The new construction lender would not have wanted to go behind the other lender."

The current plan is to break ground on the 65-unit condominium project in the first quarter of 2007, open a sales office about halfway through the 15-month construction schedule and complete the project in the middle of 2008. The high-tech highlight of the project is a seven-story automated parking system. Vehicles will pull into the parking garage, get out, and a machine will do the rest.

"The whole building is being designed around this car system," Robbins says. "I know of a few other, smaller versions in the city; this will be by far the largest."

The current design calls for 30 one-bed units (750 sf), 24 studios (575 sf) and 12 two-bedroom units (1150 sf). The units will have a high-end industrial feel. Robbins says he may offer some of the units completely raw to cater to the high-end buyer who will want to bring in their own designers. Other buyers would be able to choose their finishes from a pre-determined list of options.

The units will be priced to market, which at last check was $800-plus per sf for one-bedroom units and $1,000 per sf for studio units, says Robbins. If the first units to hit the market sell quickly, Robbins says he would be inclined to hold back the rest until the building is at or near completion in order to maximize the return on investment. "It remains to be seen who our actual buyer is," he says.

"It remains to be seen who our actual buyer is," he says. "The project we are building may be more conducive to kicking the tires."

Like the office building, Robbins says the residential tower will be very environmentally sensitive. "I don't think the residential market gives a damn [about green building]; most buyers have never even heard about LEED certification," Robbins says. "The thing we will market the most is a really well thought out design that saves people money [through energy efficiency]."